The Game
by Einna Aroura Du'an
Summary: Snape refelcts as he faces Voldemort


The game  
  
Category – Angst  
  
Rating – PG? PG-13? Not sure.  
  
Warnings – Nothing really  
  
Authors Notes – Little stand-alone story I got and had to write down (if I don't get them on paper, the plot bunnies start to colonize my brain!). If you liked my other story (Home Sweet Home...original title, huh?) this is my way of saying sorry for not updating that one. I don't know if you like this one...no Harry, no Sirius, it's a Snape story. Oh, btw, 10 points to a house of your choice if you can guess the four games he's playing.  
  
Summery – Snape reflects on the games he plays.  
  
Dedication – To all those of you still waiting for me to update Home Sweet Home (I am so so sorry!)  
  
The acrid scent of dank air reaches my nostril as I make my way towards the shadowed house in the middle of the British country somewhere...the designated location point for yet another of Voldemorts Death Eater meetings. I look up, and around, searching for the faint hints of sunshine on the Western horizon. It's barely June, and I know the sun would not have set yet, however, I cannot find sight nor trace in the skies around me.  
  
The sun never touches this place. It's almost as if it's too purely evil to be contaminated by something like the burning acid of the suns light.  
  
Once again, I prepare myself for the horrors I know I am about to face. I slip on the mask I have spent careful years crafting...the same mask I wore twenty or more years ago, the first time I faced the Dark Lord. I find, sometimes, my life is easier to think of as a game...some hybrid of many I have played though my life. Hide and Seek, Role-play, Chess...I rattle the list around in my head as I make my way across the grounds before the house.  
  
Just a game; Keep that which you have hidden away from the world, don't let it be found. Seek that which you have been sent forth to find, and then bring it back to those who sent you. Maybe you'll redeem yourself at the end of the day, arrive at Heaven and present your gold star.  
  
Or maybe it won't matter. Maybe I will die tonight, my dignity and sanity stripped away by an unforgivable curse. Maybe this will be my last night as a Death Eater, and maybe I will meet the end, surrounded by my fellow murderers as I writhe on the floor and draw blood on my bottom lip to try and contain my screams.  
  
Maybe I will never see the sun again.  
  
Maybe this will be my last day playing.  
  
I kick away the weeds overgrowing the entrance and begin up the stairs.  
  
Just a game; There's one I know too well. My whole life, I've been playing a false role, showing a false face, to one sadist or psychopath. Loyal friend to a man, loyal pet to a monster, hated potions master to hundreds of impressionable youths who could turn out to be either. I am always pretending to somebody, and in all honesty, I would not have it any other way. Twice now, the role has been dropped, the game disrupted. Once, in the kitchen of a dead family, surrounded by Aurous, my face hidden by a mask. But then, they didn't know.  
  
The glistening blood on my hands spoke louder than the glistening tears on my cheeks.  
  
In fact, the only one to ever know was Albus. It is strange to me, I suppose, that the man who was once my head teacher, and is now my employer has seen more of me than the rest of those who touch my existence combined.  
  
The only other to know, to really have ever seen me as I am, is one who I always swore to myself would never see...never know.  
  
Potter.  
  
I still wonder, was it the fact that it was Potter that allowed me to let him see what I am? He knew I was a Death-Eater, he saw my memory of my father, and he knew about me and his. However, allowing the boy to see it made it more real. Admitting my weakness to another made it real.  
  
Potter made me weak.  
  
I wonder if I had allowed the memory to play out, for Potter to view all which I placed in there...my first kill, my first kiss, the rest of that day by the lake...if I were to let him see all of me, and not thrown him away, what would he have done?  
  
I wonder Harry, would you have seen me the way both our fathers did?  
  
Weak? Pathetic?  
  
Snivelling?  
  
Would I have been more real to you? Less like Voldemorte, like the cartoon cut-out bad guy you think I am? I wonder, sometimes, do you fear me more or less because of what you know?  
  
The heavy door swings open and I am allowed entry by a force I cannot see nor trust.  
  
Just a game; Dumbledore crowned in ivory oak, Voldemorte in ebony thorns, I myself simply a pawn, stranded in the no-mans land, presenting conflicting colours to unsure players...men and women who fight beside me, but would turn at a moments notice.  
  
We thought the game was won years ago, when more white pawns fell, to make way for a child knight who placed the Dark Lord in what we were sure was check-mate, until another pawn who we all had thought gone arose once more, and through the rescue of his black king, the game continues one day more.  
  
The hallways and ceilings, once grand and lavishly adorned with antiques are now faded and dull. Pain and age old misery has permeated this house, sunk in to its very foundations.  
  
Death lives here.  
  
I play the game one day more, putting the bullets in the gun as I walk towards the room I know my Lord to be in, closing the chamber and spinning it, putting the barrel to my head as I open the door to the room, the mask firmly in place again...  
  
Will the mask suffice for one more night of play?  
  
Will it protect me if I have reached game over?  
  
I squeeze the trigger, and wait to see if I shall play again. 


End file.
